Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin's LIFE OF THE PARTY to Debut at LaGuardia High School, 5/3-6

On May 3-6, 2012, Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School will debut Life Of The Party: A Light Opera For Dark Times by Olivier Award winners and Tony nominees, Laurence O'Keefe (Legally Blonde, Bat Boy) and Nell Benjamin (Legally Blonde, Pirates!).

For tickets, visit: laguardiahs.org

Set in the Soviet Union in 1953, it's about a naive young Party apparatchik handed a suicidal mission: create a Communist movie musical to compete with the West and glorify Stalin. She tracks down her favorite director, now disgraced and laboring in the gulag, and he in turn hires the ex-wife who denounced him.

A story of love, revenge, and trying to make art under tyranny, Life of the Party explores a very timely message: you can't escape cruelty by passing it on.

In additiona to Legally Blonde, O'Keefe and Benjamin, O'Keefe has also written two musicals for Theatreworks USA: Cam Jansen, and Sarah, Plain and Tall. Benjamin and O'Keefe also collaborated on a short musical entitled The Mice, which was produced by Hal Prince as a part of the three-show evening 3hree in Philadelphia, in 2000.